It's hardly a secret that video games are a growing force in the entertainment industry, but they might be bigger than many people think.

A new study from Economists Incorporatedreports that the video game industry added $4.95 billion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product last year-and the entertainment side of the software world is growing considerably faster than other segments of the economy. (The Entertainment Software Association, the video game industry's trade group commissioned the study.) Real annual growth among game makers topped 10 percent between 2005 and 2009, according to the study. That's seven times the growth rate of the U.S. economy.

The report does underscore how devastating last year was for the game industry, however. Real annual growth between 2005 and 2008 was 16.7 percent. In 2009, the game industry saw its first negative growth since 2002, as sales fell 8 percent from the 2008 figures.

Interesting they didn't talk about "Social Gaming". Farmville alone is just raking it in. Farmville has over 60 million monthly active users. So if one of 60 people pay a dollar a month to upgrade to a purple cow or some other dumb crap.. that is $1 million bucks in the developers pocket.. and that is just through Facebook.